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Suicide bombers in Western l iterature:demythologizing a mythic discourseArata Takeda

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aUniversity of Tbingen, Tbingen, Germany

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Contemporary Justice ReviewVol. 13, No. 4, December 2010, 455475

ISSN 1028-2580 print/ISSN 1477-2248 online 2010 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/10282580.2010.517985http://www.informaworld.com

Suicide bombers in Western literature: demythologizing a mythicdiscourse

Arata Takeda*

University of Tbingen, Tbingen, GermanyTaylorandFrancisGCJR_A_517985.sgm10.1080/10282580.2010.517985ContemporaryJustice Review1028-2580(print)/1477-2248(online)OriginalArticle2010Taylor&Francis1340000002010ArataTakedaarata.takeda@uni -tuebingen.de; [email protected]

In facing the challenge of suicide terrorism today on a global scale, it is temptingto attribute the phenomenon to cultural or religious behavior patterns observedsolely in non-Western countries. Yet recent scholarly research on its possiblecultural or religious origins has led less to convincing and satisfactory results than

to an unresolved aporia between arbitrariness and contingency. By the same token,little notice is taken of the fact that, in Western history and literature, actions andfigures can be found whose development and strategies conspicuously resemblethose of todays suicide bombers. A series of such analogous examples in Westernliterature from antiquity to the present is explored in order to provide deeper insightsinto situational and systemic factors at work beyond cultural and religiousdeterminants. To more effectively counter suicide terrorism, alternative policies are

proposed with the vision of a peaceful coexistence of diverse cultures and religions.

Keywords: asymmetric warfare; freedom fighting; heroism; military practice;slave ethic; suicide bombing

Introduction

During the last quarter of the twentieth century, a series of critical works in literaryand cultural studies has developed a complex epistemology of the self and the other(see Bhabha, 1994; Eagleton, 2000; Greenblatt, 1991; Kristeva, 1991; Said, 1993,1978/1995; Todorov, 1982). Since then, the heuristic opposition between Occidentand Orient has increasingly been brought into question by considering two pragmaticproblems. First, one tends to schematize or even dichotomize the perception of thevariety of cultures by disregarding the fact that cultures within themselves can behybrid and heterogeneous (see Said, 1993, p. xxv; Eagleton, 2000, p. 15). Second,according to the given cultural scheme, self-adaptation or self-exoticization can takeplace (see, e.g., Bhabha, 1994, chap. 4, pp. 8592), with the result that it is not theculture that reflects the scheme but rather the scheme that constructs the culture. Self-ness and otherness are thus primarily theoretical categories for handling differencesrather than empirical categories for defining cultures.

In facing the challenge of suicide terrorism today on a global scale, it is temptingto attribute the phenomenon to cultural or religious behavior patterns observed solelyin non-Western countries (see, e.g., Smith, 2003), in particular, when not exclusively,in countries of the Islamic world (see, e.g., Follath, Grobongardt, & Mascolo, 2004,p. 107). Yet recent scholarship on the possible cultural or religious origins of suicideterrorism has led less to convincing and satisfactory results than to an unresolved

*Email: [email protected]

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456 A. Takeda

aporia between arbitrariness and contingency.1 Smiths proposition that organizedsuicide bombing is an exclusively non-Western phenomenon (Smith, 2003) has nosufficient empirical foundation; neither does Conesas claim that the phenomenon isby and large of Muslim origin (Conesa, 2004). By the same token, little notice is takenof the fact that, in Western history and literature, actions and figures can be foundwhose development and strategies conspicuously resemble those of todays suicidebombers. Here, the phenomenon of suicide terrorism betrays its potentially universalcharacter.2

The genesis of suicide terrorism has been not least in the aftermath of 11 Septem-ber 2001 the subject of intensive historical and cultural inquiry (see, e.g., Kermani,2002; Laqueur, 2003, pp. 7197; Atran, 2003). Reuter, Croitoru, and Smith havetraced tangled lines of development from the medieval Isma ili sect of Assassins viathe Japanese kamikaze pilots in the Pacific War to the suicide pilots in the terroristattacks on New York and Washington (Reuter, 2002, 2003; Croitoru, 2003; Smith,2003). In such structural observations, the contextual difference between warfare and

terrorism, strategic strikes on military targets and deliberate attacks on innocent civil-ians, is flagrantly overlooked.3 On the other hand, under the impact of todays anti-Western Islamist terrorism, comparable examples from across Western history remainrelatively unconsidered.

Thus, the current Western discourse (political, journalistic, etc.) on suicideterrorism can be characterized as a mythic discourse in Edward W. Saids terms(Said, 1978/1995, p. 321). The phenomenon of suicide bombing is wrongly beingorientalized or even Islamicized, and misleading conceptions of selfness and other-ness are being constructed along the process. If we are to avoid the seductive degra-dation of knowledge that Said deplores with regard to Orientalism (Said, 1978/1995,

p. 328), a more self-critical approach in mutual justice and cultural respect is neededfor a better understanding of the allegedly exotic phenomenon.This article aims to challenge prevalent culturalizing views of suicide terrorism by

exploring examples which reveal the current discursive othering and the inherentuniversal dimension of the phenomenon. In concrete terms, its intent is to examinesuch agonistic behavior in which the destructive energy is bidirectional directedagainst the self and against the other and to set the focus on those phenomena whichhave found their expressions in Western literature in terms of Western cultural repre-sentations. The tension between fiction and fact is of secondary importance in thecontext of this study. What matters in the formation of cultural memory is less the

empirical facts than their systematic selection, representation and interpretation.On the basis of a constructionist approach, my argument proceeds in five steps.First, I suggest a metaphorical understanding of suicide bombing so that we canbroaden our perspective on what elements this behavior consists of. This understand-ing brings us to the analogy with certain practices observed in Western history andliterature, namely power-based ethics and hero-making narrative. Second, against thebackground of the theoretical requirement of the readiness to fight and to die in themilitary practice, the connection between literature and power-based ethics isaddressed from the view of the wielders of power. Third, the same connection isconsidered from the view of the servants of power. Fourth, the narrative practice ofhero-making is analyzed with respect to the effective use of the motif of suicide kill-ing. Finally, the strategic, apocalyptic and revolutionary variants of suicide bombingand their ethical implications are discussed. In the concluding section, based on thefindings of the study, alternative policies are proposed for more effectively countering

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Contemporary Justice Review 457

the challenge of suicide terrorism. Additional perspectives from literary and culturalstudies to those recently offered by anthropology (Atran, 2003), history (Croitoru,2003), Islamic studies (Reuter, 2002, 2003), philosophy (Smith, 2003), politicalscience (Mnkler, 2002 & 2006), psychology (Schmidbauer, 2001, 2003), religiousstudies (Kermani, 2002), and sociology (Laqueur, 2003) are also discussed.

Suicide bombing: a metaphorical understanding

Terry Eagleton has described the Professor of Joseph Conrads novel The SecretAgent (1907) as the first suicide bomber in English literature (Eagleton, 2003, p.215; see also Eagleton, 2005, p. 121). In fact, the crazed anarchist and ego-maniac,who strolls through the streets of London with a detonator hidden in the inner pocketof his waistcoat, proves his superiority by relying not on life, but on death, whichknows no restraint and cannot be attacked (Conrad, 1907/2004, p. 51). However, ifwe understand the term suicide bomber metaphorically although not metaphysi-

cally we encounter a more significant figure long before Conrads character, namelythe celebrated hero of John Miltons dramatic poem Samson Agonistes (1671). And ifwe open the criteria toward those who are ready to destroy themselves in destroyingothers, we can, as I will show below, find even more such figures.

In Western literature as a whole, including the Old Testament and Greek tragediesas its ancient fundaments and inspiring sources, the tracks of both self-destructive andterroristic actions and figures lead far back into the history of representation of asym-metric conflict patterns and their consequences. Schmidbauer and Reuter have pointedout two decisive moments in the genesis of modern suicide terrorism: the invention ofexplosives which made the destruction of masses possible and the development of

mass media into a technical apparatus capable of worldwide propaganda (Schmid-bauer, 2001, p. 106, 2003, p. 26; Reuter, 2003, pp. 2324). However, long beforeexplosives and mass media were invented, there have existed since time immemorialin the imagination of mankind mythological figures with supernatural power anddeities or god-like creatures who manifest the ability to disseminate information andto manipulate the masses. Where certain situational variables and systemic determi-nants are at play (see Zimbardo, 2007, p. 445), the typical behavior pattern of a suicidebomber could well be imagined at any stage of history. Literature, being historicizedand textualized culture, maintains its timeless relevance to the human condition.

Significant changes in Western view of the suicidal expression of violence seem

to have occurred in the course of the twentieth century with the experiences of twoworld wars and various revolutionary and terrorist movements. By comparing twoprominent theoretical writings on the issue of violence, one by Walter Benjamin andthe other by Hannah Arendt, the former published before and the latter after WorldWar II, we can observe a paradigmatic shift of ideological background from the notionof a redeeming and bloodless divine violence (Benjamin, 1977, p. 199) to that of anatrocious and merciless violence arising out of the impotence of power (Arendt, 1970,pp. 5354). The notion of violence has been consistently secularized, and the usethereof has become more and more life-conscious.

The present state of affairs shows a Janus face. In the so-called post-heroic societiesof the West, heroic fearlessness in the face of death and readiness to self-sacrifice nolonger constitute general ethical imperatives for everyday life (see Mnkler, 2002),4in contrast to the sector of military where heroism is still called for. The historicaldecrease of a selfless disposition to fight and its displacement into a less than fully

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voluntarist sector in Western democracies (see Mnkler, 2006)5 provide a key to under-standing the mechanism of recruitment and indoctrination that guarantees the func-tioning of suicide operations of non-Western militant organizations such as Hamas,Hizbullah, or Islamic Jihad. For literary and cultural studies in particular, this ambivalentsituation requires knowledge regarding the historical transformation of the idea of hero-ism and thus poses the task of outlining a diachronic trajectory of various conceptionsof agonistic and suicidal behavior represented in texts of high socio-political relevance.

Western literature and military practice

Exploring the vast terrain of Western literature, the first thing we notice is that agonis-tic and at the same time suicidal motifs or figures are not frequently to be found.However, this is true of all literature. It would be not only rash, but also wrong toclaim that some cultures are more likely to praise or are keener on representing suchmotifs or figures than others. The occurrence of such representations depends rather

on socio-political factors and power relations which accompany or determine theparticular situation of writing.

In European literature, until the emergence of the so-called bourgeois tragedy inthe eighteenth century, only characters of noble rank were placed at the center ofsolemn literary interest. This means that until then, except for rare outbreaks of abourgeois realism in the history of literature (see Auerbach, 1946/1964), the fate ofthose individuals who were subject to the power of others remained entirely outsidethe interest of solemn literary writing let alone for historiography. Since the age ofEnlightenment and the French Revolution, or more concretely since the diverse proc-lamations of the rights of man and the condemnations of slavery, Europe looks at the

worlds social and martial events through different eyes. What until then was taken forgranted suddenly appeared to be ethically questionable. Military missions for whichlives had to be sacrificed became with the introduction of the guarantee of humandignity and the development in retreat techniques and casualty transport (see Keegan,1976, pp. 269270) not only problematic, but also superfluous.6

Sacrificial missions as such have existed as long as organized conflicts exist. Interms of military history, each officer who put his soldiers in the front line of a merci-less battle knew their deathly fate. So, for instance, did King David act, when hecommanded his servant Uriah to be placed up front, where the fighting is fierce, sothat he should be struck down dead (2 Samuel 11:15). In his seventeenth-century

philosophical treatiseLeviathan (1651), Thomas Hobbes asserts that Davids indirectkilling of Uriah was not an Injurie to Uriah [], because the right to doe what hepleased, was given him by Uriah himself (Hobbes, 1651/1997, p. 117).7 The imageryof a tactically sacrificeable infantry from jia-shun (Chinese, armors and shields;Kolb, 1991, p. 197, n. 14) in Ancient China to foode for powder (original spelling,Shakespeare, 1986, p. 534; 1 Henry IV, Act 4, scene 2, l. 2326) in Renaissance Europe speaks a universal language.

A significant change in the understanding of one persons arbitrary power overanother makes its appearance in the direction of a more liberal and humane conceptionof power, when John Locke in Two Treatises of Government(1690), deals with theextent of legislative power of the commonwealth. He argues that

no Body has an absolute Arbitrary Power over himself, or over any other, to destroy hisown Life, or take away the Life or Property of another. A Man cannot subject himself

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to the Arbitrary Power of another theLegislative Power in the utmost Bounds ofit, is limited to the publick goodof the Society. It is a Power, that hath no other end but

preservation, and therefore can never have a right to destroy, enslave, or designedly toimpoverish the Subjects. (Locke, 1690/1967, p. 375, 135, emphasis in original)

Interestingly, precisely this objective of preservation opens a special door for whatLocke actually intends to abolish in all forms of human life. With regard to the prac-tice of martial discipline, he draws a critical distinction between absolute power andarbitrary power:

the Preservation of the Army, and in it of the whole Commonwealth, requires an absoluteObedience to the Command of every Superiour Officer, and it is justly Death to disobeyor dispute the most dangerous or unreasonable of them: but yet we see, that neither theSerjeant, that could command a Souldier to march up to the mouth of a Cannon, or standin a Breach, where he is almost sure to perish, can command that Soldier to give him one

penny of his Money; nor the General, that can condemn him to Death for deserting his

Post, or for not obeying the most desperate Orders, can yet with all his absolute Powerof Life and Death, dispose of one Farthing of that Soldiers Estate, or seize one jot of hisGoods; whom yet he can command any thing, and hang for the least Disobedience.Because such a blind Obedience is necessary to that end for which the Commander hashis Power, viz. the preservation of the rest; but the disposing of his Goods has nothing todo with it. (Locke, 1690/1967, pp. 379380, 139, emphasis in original)

This famous passage is usually quoted with reference to the importance of privateproperty being protected under any circumstances. However, there is a secondary though not less significant point, namely the retention of the otherwise questionablevertical power in military contexts, expressed in the emphasis on the soldiers abso-lute duty to obedience of their superiors. Penny and farthing stand here in glaringcontrast with liberty and life. On the one side, we are dealing with things which maynever be arbitrarily taken away from anyone, neither in this nor in any other context;on the other side, we are dealing with rights which, according to Locke, are supposedto be deactivated exclusively in this context.

In extreme cases, a deliberate renunciation of life is here considered necessary toachieve the primary task of the military, namely the preservation of the whole asopposed to the preservation of the individual. Locke, in fact, does not seem to disap-prove of the idea of the individuals sacrifice for the sake of survival of the rest. In anearlier place, where the state of liberty is discussed together with the liberty todestroy, he significantly asserts:

though this be a State of Liberty, yet it is not a State of Licence, though Man in that Statehave an uncontroleable Liberty, to dispose of his Person or Possessions, yet he has notLiberty to destroy himself, or so much as any Creature in his Possession, but where somenobler use, than its bare Preservation calls for it. (Locke, 1690/1967, pp. 288289, 6,last emphasis added)

Accordingly, where the preservation of the whole is at stake be it the preservationof the army as a microcosm or of the commonwealth as the macrocosm it should begiven priority over the preservation of the individual. For Locke, it constitutes anobler aim than a bare preservation of ones life.

What takes place in the passage from Hobbes to Locke during the ripening processof the seventeenth-century state philosophy is therefore not a total abolishment, butrather a mere displacement of absolute power. Despite all his liberal merits, compared

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with HobbessLeviathan, Locke creates a security gap that theoretically supports anykind of suicidal mission so long as its usefulness for achieving a noble end is guaran-teed. This gap aside from the monumental theory of the separation of powers thatwill influence a large number of Enlightenment thinkers such as Montesquieu,Voltaire, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau and furthermore inspire the United StatesDeclaration of Independence (1776) as well as the French Declaration of the Rights ofMan and of the Citizen (1789) enables a dangerous concentration of absolute poweron the exclusive practice of military.

Nevertheless, the impact of this alarming power shift does not materialize on alarge scale in Western history and literature. At the latest, since the beginning ofthe decline of the Ottoman Empire following the Great Turkish War (16831699),Western nations have broadly maintained their hegemonic position in both militarypower and technology against other nations. This fact implies that, for certaindomains, they generally had not only sufficient lower rank, but also non-domestichuman material at their disposal.8 If we remember that Napoleon used Mamluk forces

in his campaigns in Egypt (17981801), Spain (18081809), Belgium (1815), andother places, and that T.E. Lawrence reflected on sacrificing the Arabs for the Englishduring the Arab Revolt (19161918; Lawrence, 1922/1965, p. 395), we can imaginehow less disturbing Westerners ethical restraints must have been so far as the use offoreign soldiers was concerned. In imperial or colonial interests, they could easily besent out to certain death.

Western literature and slave ethic

The idea that a servant, if need be, ought gladly to give his life for his master, derives

from an ancient slave ethic. Euripides, for instance, formulates it through the mouthof Agamemnons old attendant in his tragedy Iphigenia at Aulis (ca 406 BC):Glorious it were in my lords cause to die (Euripides, 1988, p. 29, l. 312). In princi-ple, little seems to change about this idea from the classical antiquity through theMiddle Ages until into the age of Enlightenment. In Gotthold E. Lessings firstGerman bourgeois tragedy, Miss Sara Sampson (1755), Sir Williams old servantWaitwell advocates the same atavistic ideal of servility by stating, If all masters werelike Sir William, their servants would be inhuman not to give their lives for them(Lessing, 1755/1977, p. 45, Act 3, scene 3, emphasis added). What makes thismessage remarkable in a work of Enlightenment literature is that the category of the

inhuman comes into play against the human instinct of self-preservation.From here, it is an easy step to allow someone to be used as a human weapon. Ifserving the master means to murder for him, the suicidal determination of theservant can intensify itself to the agonistic and suicidal zeal of a contract killer. InShakespeares plays, profoundly submissive and resolute figures of that kind appearwithout exception in minor roles and in most cases anonymously, such as the name-less, simply enumerated murderers in Macbeth (1623). These men have nothing tolose; they represent the radical losers (Enzensberger, 2006) in life and labor:

1. MURTHERER. I am one, my Liege,Whom the vile Blowes and Buffets of the World

Hath so incensd, that I am recklesse whatI doe, to spight the World.2. MURTHERER. And I another,

So wearie with Disasters, tuggd with Fortune,

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That I would set my Life on any Chance,To mend it, or to rid ont.[]

2. MURTHERER. We shall, my Lord,Performe what you command vs.

1. MURTHERER. Though our Liues (Shakespeare, 1986, pp. 11131114; Macbeth,Act 3, scene 1, ll. 910916, 928929)

They are absolutely determined to liquidate Banquo and Fleance on behalf ofMacbeth, cost what it may. In selfless devotion to the will of their commander, theyare completely aware of the highest price they must pay. Behind the aposiopesis thesudden breaking-off in speech displayed through the dash we are allowed to readtheir suicidal willingness to follow any kind of orders.

In fact, not the tragic heroes capable of dramatically falling from their noble rank,but the most untragic and insignificant figures of minor parts are those who typicallydemonstrate a both agonistic and suicidal disposition.9 Not the great and the high, but

the mean and the low present themselves as potential suicide bombers, by manifest-ing unconditional obedience to their superiors. These action motifs, however, remainsecondary and replaceable in view of the pivotal motifs of the drama be they regi-cide, usurpation, revenge, or self-destruction. This explains one of the importantreasons why the motif of suicide bombing metaphorically speaking scarcelyplays a dominant role within the general motif framework of Western literary textsprior to the nineteenth century.10 Of course there are significant exceptions, which Iwill discuss in detail below. In any case, the phenomenon of suicide bombing interms of suicidal mission, to be carried out by a slavish character as the protagonist,could hardly be of interest for Aristotle-oriented rule poetics.

Glorious heroes: from account to strategy

In its very beginning, literature was particularly committed to the making of heroes.From the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (ca 25001500 BC) and the Homeric epics (ca750700 BC) to medieval heroic poems such asBeowulf(between 8th and 11th centu-ries) and The Song of Roland (late 11th century), one of literatures main purposeswas to convey specific systems of values over generation upon generation, by featur-ing mythological or national heroes embodying them. Prior to the rise in importanceof bourgeois and later proletarian figures in literature in accordance with the socio-

political and socio-economic changes in societies since the eighteenth century, therewere primarily two levels on which positive social values could be promulgatedthrough literature. One level was that of leading characters of noble rank who livedand died heroically and thus established ethical examples. The other was that of minorcharacters of lower ranks who were not supposed to show heroic bravery due to theirorigins, but could be examples of loyalty and servility.

We have seen typical cases of suicidal servility above. They demonstrate that, inextreme cases, servants are obliged to give their lives for their masters, and theyshould willingly do so. This does not necessarily mean that they reflect the social real-ity of the time. On the contrary, they represent part of the permanent attempt of aris-tocratically patronized literature to dictate what reality should look like. The sameapplies to those cases of heroic bravery which are narrated or performed for thepurpose of education, entertainment, or idolatry. What matters is less what happenedveridically than what should be recorded and passed on in the collective memory.

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A hero who destroys himself in order to destroy the enemy has the advantage thatan example of self-sacrifice can be established without any constraint or, if at all, witha divine implication. The first suicide attack not in historical, but in narrative terms was of this kind. The Israelite judge Samson, who was proclaimed to be conse-crated to God from the womb and to begin the deliverance of Israel from the powerof the Philistines (Judges 13:5), now with his eyes gouged out and put into chains inGaza, delivers a furious end in the Philistine temple:

The temple was full of men and women: all the lords of the Philistines were there, andfrom the roof about three thousand men and women looked on as Samson providedamusement. Samson cried out to the LORD and said, O Lord GOD, remember me!Strengthen me, O God, this last time that for my two eyes I may avenge myself once andfor all on the Philistines. Samson grasped the two middle columns on which the templerested and braced himself against them, one at his right hand, the other at his left. AndSamson said, Let me die with the Philistines! He pushed hard, and the temple fell uponthe lords and all the people who were in it. Those he killed at his death were more than

those he had killed during his lifetime. (Judges 16:2730).

This mythographic account emphasizes the fact that the act of self-sacrifice wascarried out absolutely freely. This is the way heroes are made. No doubt is allowedabout the genuinely intentional character of the event; any indication of its possibleincidental character is suppressed.11

The series of similar hero-making legends continues on various levels down theages into our time. There is the Swiss patriot Arnold Winkelried who, in the Battle ofSempach against the Habsburg army in 1386, threw himself onto the enemy spikesand thus opened a breach for attack (see Laqueur, 2003, p. 73). In fact, the historicity

of this event is widely questioned. There is also the Piedmontese miner Pietro Miccawho, during the Siege of Turin by French troops in 1706, ignited a mine at so short adistance that he killed himself with the invaders (see Assum, 1926, pp. 142145). He,too, has been a typical case of posthumous legend-making.12 Then there is thePrussian sapper Carl Klinke who, in the Battle of Dybbl during the Second SchleswigWar in 1864, blew himself up, blasting a hole into the Danish bulwark (see Arndt,2008, p. 62). Theodor Fontane commemorated this event in his poem Dybbl Day(1864). Japan eulogized its three human bombs of Shanghai at the onset of theSecond Sino-Japanese War in 1937 (see Croitoru, 2003, pp. 4243), and South Koreacelebrated its ten human bomb heroes in the run-up to the Korean War in 1949 (seeCroitoru, 2003, p. 71). So far as the narrative hero-making process is concerned, theaccount of The Battle for United 93 in the 9/11 Commission Report (NationalCommission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, 2004, pp. 1014) can beseen along the same lines, not least because the courageous passengers are immortal-ized in cinematography.

When a heroic feat is believed to consist in a deliberate self-sacrifice and hencepotential heroes from all levels of society crave such a noble death, there should be noneed to coerce anyone into it: everyone of a brave nature, whatever their social rank,should eagerly imitate the heroic example. Friedrich Hlderlin, for instance, expressedhis fervent longing for self-sacrifice in his poem Death for the Fatherland (1797).Yet the presumption that heroes can be generated by dexterous storytelling remains in

the realm of theory. In practice, even if in earlier ages, the willingness to pay theultimate price in war had been taken for granted (Laqueur, 2003, p. 77), it wasthought advisable to use further arguments and to employ additional means in order

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to guarantee an unshakeable fighting spirit in the combatant forces. This is part of thereason why, from Marco Polo via Silvestre de Sacy up to our popular media, it hasbeen and is still largely believed that the Assassins used cannabis to enhance theircombative morale.13 Niall Ferguson, on the other hand, mentions some indispensabletools of European trench warfare by name: Without alcohol, and perhaps also withouttobacco, the First World War could not have been fought (Ferguson, 1998, p. 351).

Further arguments for promoting a species of self-sacrificial heroism arecommonly based on discipline and strategy. Both of them are tightly related to thesupreme objective of the army, that is to say, the preservation of the whole. Militarydiscipline in terms of absolute obedience up to the point of self-sacrifice has beendiscussed above. At the same time, one should not ignore the impact of authoritariancontrol, which can sometimes be quite impressive in human psychology. HeinrichMann, for instance, speaks in his novelMan of Straw (1918) of suicidal enthusiasmin the military service of the German Empire (Mann, 1918/1995, p. 49; see also p. 51).

In Western societies, under the prevailing tendency to polarize the distinction

between Occident and Orient (see Said, 1978/1995, pp. 4546), it has gradually beenforgotten that back in Western history there was a time when human integrity wasmuch less a bodily matter and the preservation of honor was far more important thanthe preservation of life. Ajax, for instance, once idolized as a great hero of the TrojanWar, then dishonored in the competition for Achilles armor against Odysseus, andfinally self-humiliated by slaughtering a herd of cattle in a fit of madness, has no doubtabout what kind of action to take against his foes. His words in Sophocles tragedyAjax (ca 450 BC) are clear enough:

O Zeus, father or my ancestors,if only I could destroy the craftiest of all,the trickster that I detest [i.e. Odysseus],and the two brother kings [i.e. Agamemnon and Menelaus],14

and at last die myself![] I must think of some actionthat will prove to my aged fatherthat I his son was born no coward.When a man has no relief from troubles,it is shameful for him to desire long life.What pleasure comes from day following day,

bringing us near to and taking us back from death?I would not set any value upon a man

who is warmed by false hopes.The noble man must live with honouror be honourably dead (Sophocles, 1994, pp. 69, 75; ll. 387391, 470480)

What follows thereafter is not an ordinary suicide. Before falling upon his sword, Ajaxcalls upon, among others, the Erinyes for help. These avenging deities of the under-world shall snatch up his foes and utterly destroy them (Sophocles, 1994,p. 107, ll. 839840). Since the Erinyes can be, as a rule, called upon in case of some-ones death, it is Ajaxs death that builds the prerequisite for the divine vengeance tobe carried out. Therefore he gives a rhetorical description of what he intends to do, bywishing that they [i.e. the Erinyes] witness [his] destruction at the hands of the sons

of Atreus [i.e. Agamemnon and Menelaus] (Sophocles, 1994, p. 107, ll. 837838).Ajaxs suicide hence serves an offensive purpose. Full of rancor, indignation, and

thirst for revenge and with the desire to destroy both himself and his foes, he brings

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about a virtual explosion in the middle of the tragedy. The virtual bomb fails to killhis foes, but his reputation is vindicated in the end (see Sophocles, 1994, p. 163, ll.14131417). There is a relevant point we ascertain from this tragic plot: Ajax, in atransferred sense, discovers for himself the strategy of suicide bombing, which is theultimate strategy of asymmetric warfare.

Compared with Ajaxs strategically thought-out act, Samsons action was of a spon-taneous nature, but his obvious suicide posed the question of its legitimacy alreadywithin the Jewish tradition and all the more in the Christian reception of the story. 15

Interestingly enough, the legitimacy of his mass murder, including women and children,has seldom been questioned a fact explained by the hostility between Israelites andPhilistines and the domination and the worship of idols by the latter. Despite all this,the Samson story is a very popular subject in Western art and literature, especially insixteenth- and early seventeenth-century moralizing plays. Whether avoiding the themeof suicide or excusing it to some extent, they generally keep the main focus of the ploton the motif of female intrigue and treachery (the Delilah episode, Judges 16:421),

which is understandable from a historical point of view. This trend continues throughoutthe following centuries until into the early twentieth century. Yet within this more orless conventional cluster of texts, there stands out a work with striking radicalness:Miltons Samson Agonistes resets the focus of representation on the conclusion ofSamsons life and reflects the political and strategic dimensions of his suicide.

In Miltons psychologizing representation which makes the inner voices of hischaracters audible, the blinded and bound Samson is utterly aware of what yet lies inthe range of his possibilities. His strategic program is specifically designed in accor-dance with his desire for death:

my deadliest foe will proveMy speediest friend, by death to rid me hence,The worst that he can give, to me the best,Yet so it may fall out, because their endIs hate, not help to me, it may with mineDraw their own ruin who attempt the deed.[] I begin to feelSome rousing emotions in me which disposeTo something extraordinary my thoughts.[]If there be aught of presage in the mind,This day will be remarkable in my lifeBy some great act, or of my days the last. (Milton, 1968, pp. 387, 390391; ll. 12621267, 13811383, 13871389)

The disjunctive conjunction or in the last quoted line is to be understood as express-ing alternatives not between survival and death the former is not included in thestrategy but between success and failure of the planned suicide attack. Samsonsimply admits the inscrutability of Gods will, while his decision simultaneously todie and to kill is definite. What he intends by of my days the last, is not the last dayof his life, but the last day of his glory. Samson eventually succeeds in concordancewith the Old Testament narrative, and indeed his glory survives beyond his death. Thechorus, notified of Samsons destruction of himself and his enemy, compares him witha phoenix: though her body die, her fame survives,/A secular bird ages of lives(Milton, 1968, p. 400, ll. 17061707). Samson will live forth in the hearts of theIsraelites, worshipped as their national hero.

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For todays readers, severe ethical questions arise regarding the excessive solem-nity of the finale. Despite the brutal massacre committed against civilians attending areligious feast Lords, ladies, captains, counsellors, priests,/Their choice nobilityand flower (Milton, 1968, p. 398, ll. 16531654) the hymns of praise and panegy-rics to the faithful champion (Milton, 1968, p. 401, l. 1751) know no limits, and thechorus does not hesitate to affirm in the end, All is best (Milton, 1968 p. 401, l.1745). Is it not lamentable to lose a companion or even ones own son, for whateverpurpose it may be? Is it not contemptible to kill innocent civilians? Samsons fatherManoa is of different opinion:

Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wailOr knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt,Dispraise, or blame, nothing but well and fair,And what may quiet us in a death so noble. (Milton, 1968, p. 400, ll. 17211724)

There emerges neither respect for the enemy nor any sense of accountability; every-

thing culminates in a rhetorical glossing over and a lyrical extolment of the suicidemass murder.

Doubtful heroes: from strategy to experience

The prominent examples discussed so far draw upon mythological material. Deeds ofheroes such as Ajax or Samson, who were of colossal stature and superhumanstrength, can be told and retold without any influence on the practical ability, but withcertain consequences affecting the practical behavior of man. There is a gradual shift-ing from the realm of imagination to the realm of action, as one grows aware of his or

her abilities and the means available. Here, the suicidal strategy enters an empiricalstage. This is not to suggest, of course, that the strategy of offensive suicide does notleave the field of theory until a certain point of history, for instance, the early modernperiod when firearms and explosives were invented. The readiness of servants orsoldiers to self-sacrifice, as it has been seen earlier, was of enormous practical usewithin asymmetric conflicts of any kind. However, the progress in weapons technol-ogy facilitates the fulfillment of the destructive imagination on a more ambitious scaleand in a more systematic manner.

The agonistic and suicidal imagination is articulated not only in mythological, butalso in empirical texts, when the asymmetric power relation is at issue. Rousseau, for

instance, describes in his autobiography The Confessions (1782/1789) the ragingimagination he had in his childhood after being violently punished for an uncommittedcrime (Rousseau, 1782/1783, p. 2023):

This first sentiment of violence and injustice is so deeply graven on my soul, that everyresembling idea brings back my first emotion; and this sentiment relative to me in itsorigin, has taken such a confidence, and is so far from personal interest, that my heart isinflamed at the sight or recital of an unjust action, whatever may be its object, or where-soever it may be committed, as if the effect fell on me. When I read the history of acruel tyrant, the subtle black actions of a knavish priest, I could set off heartily to stabthese miscreants, though I should perish an hundred times in the attempt. (Rousseau,1782/1783, p. 23)

The little Jean-Jacques neither has an explosive belt nor belongs to a terrorist organi-zation, but his case encompasses a whole set of important mental components of a

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potential suicide bomber: the trauma of violence and injustice, the asymmetric powerrelation, the pathological demand for justice, identification and solidarity with allthose suffering oppression and injustice, and not least the suicidal aggression towardsstereotypical enemy images. In another time and another milieu, he would easily havebeen recruited, indoctrinated, and used as a suicide bomber.16

While the little Jean-Jacques thinks of stabbing, the military weaponry has longsince achieved more potent dimensions. A century later, in the aftermath of theNapoleonic Wars (17921815), Carl von Clausewitz devotes a chapter to the subjectof relative strength in his unfinished military classic On War (1832) and ends thechapter with a reflection on ultimate strategies for the desperately inferior:

Where the disparity of strength is so overwhelming that no limitation of ones objectiveswill provide protection from failure, or where the period of danger threatens to be soextended that not even the greatest economy of strength can lead to success, the tensionwill, or should, build up to one decisive blow. The hard-pressed army, not expecting helpwhere none can be forthcoming, can only trust to the high morale that despair breeds in

all courageous men. At that point the greatest daring, possibly allied with a bold strata-gem, will seem to be the greatest wisdom. Where success is out of reach, an honorabledefeat will at least grant one the right to rise again in days to come. (von Clausewitz,1832/1976, pp. 283284)

What Rousseau experienced and contemplated within the interpersonal dimension ofsocial frictions appears here transferred and adapted to the intergroup dimension ofarmed conflicts. Whether on the individual or the collective level, the same principledetermines the most radical outcome of both cases. The inexorable sense of impo-tence, helplessness, and exasperation, combined with all the splendid images oflegendary heroes in mind, engenders an exuberant boldness that eventually results in

self-destruction.Although it is unlikely that Clausewitz considered the possibility of ideologically

transforming the honorable defeat into an effective triumph, the idea remains tempt-ing that the decisive blow on the part of the weaker side might be so devastating thatfor the stronger enemy too there will be no escape from perishing all together. In real-istic fiction, this apocalyptic dimension of organized violence is reflected especiallysince the period immediately preceding the French Revolution. Friedrich Schillersplay The Robbers (1781), for instance, exemplifies how a group of social outsidersand losers comes to form a gang of banditti to run amok against the whole bourgeoisworld order. The cause for the terroristic insurgency could not be more private than it

is: Karl von Moor, the firstborn son of the reigning Count Maximilian von Moor, wascut off from succession and inheritance (through a plot of his younger brother Franz,but at the beginning Karl does not know this). In consequence as Schiller observeslater in a self-review written in the third person the private bitterness against theunloving father degenerates into a universal wrath against the whole human race(Schiller, 2004, p. 624). Karl announces to his companions:

My soul thirsts after deeds of valour; I pant for freedom Murderers and robbers! Withthis word was all law stamped under my feet Men renounced humanity; begone fromme then sympathy and all forbearance! I no longer have a father, I have no longer love;and blood and death shall teach me to forget that any thing ever was dear to me! Come!

Come! Oh! I will stir up a dreadful havock ! (Schiller, 1781/1799, Act 1, scene 7, p. 43)Blessed by the charisma to mobilize the most heterogeneous pack, Karl calls for violenceand murder, organizes terrorist attacks, and orchestrates sacrificial missions in the

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broadest sense of the term. The band takes on important elements of a military force:fidelity and obedience are to be sworn to him, the captain of the band, even till death(Schiller, 1781/1799, Act 1, scene 7, p. 43). Towards the end of the play, the presenceof his beloved father and the sight of his mistress Amalia threaten to collapse his ambi-tious project of wreaking terror and havoc. Karl reacts with the most desperate strategy:

Tear her [i.e. Amalia] from my neck! Murder her! murder him [i.e. Maximilian vonMoor]! me! you! all! Let the whole world perish! (Schiller, 1781/1799, Act 5, scene 7,

p. 185)

A serious intent of mass destruction is expressed here: only the right weapon is lack-ing to bring about the end of the world. In Western media today, it is often argued thatIslam has as yet undergone no Enlightenment (see, e.g., Bohrer, 2001; Hutton, 2004;Davidson, 2006); this claim, for its part, makes Islam appear to be particularly suscep-tible to the irrational life-despising conduct observed in suicide bombing (see, e.g.,

Smith, 2003; Conesa, 2004; Follath et al., 2004). It is interesting to note that the char-acters ofThe Robbers were designed to think and act precisely as excessively enlight-ened and thus all the more atrocious creatures. Schillers aim with the play was todemonstrate the inherent risks of self-destruction of the Enlightenment (Hinderer,2005, p. 63).

Schiller is certainly one of the most prominent of the early modern playwrightswho have dramatized the phenomenon of collective terror in terms of the Aristotelianpostulates ofleos (Greek, pity) andphbos (Greek, fear; Aristotle, 1973, p. 23).17

Yet he achieves more than this. In the preface to the 1799 English translation ofTheRobbers, the contemporary reception is summed up in a significant phrase: We feelalternately sensation of abhorrence, anxiety, terror, compassion, and admiration(Schiller, 1781/1799, p. viii, emphasis in original).

During the course of the following centuries, not only in political, but also in liter-ary consciousness, the lack of destructive potential to exterminate the whole universeis compensated for step-by-step by the growing lethality of available modern weap-ons. In Conrads The Secret Agent, the old anarchist Karl Yundt still confesses tohaving

always dreamed of a band of men absolute in their resolve to discard all scruples inthe choice of means, strong enough to give themselves frankly the name of destroyers,and free from the taint of that resigned pessimism which rots the world. No pity for

anything on earth, including themselves, and death enlisted for good and all in theservice of humanity thats what I would have liked to see. (Conrad, 1907/2004, p. 32)

But in Italo Svevos novel Confessions of Zeno (1923), the threat of or the wish for a worldwide disaster, triggered off by a single man and engulfing all humanity, isperceived in concrete visions of an apocalypse to come. In the last entry of his journal,Zeno Cosini, the tobacco-addicted, hypochondriac first-person narrator, assumes aprophetic tone:

When all the poison gases are exhausted, a man, made like all other men of flesh andblood, will in the quiet of his room invent an explosive of such potency that all the explo-

sives in existence will seem like harmless toys beside it. And another man, made in hisimage and in the image of all the rest, but a little weaker than them, will steal that explo-sive and crawl to the center of the earth with it, and place it just where he calculates itwould have the maximum effect. There will be a tremendous explosion, but no one will

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468 A. Takeda

hear it and the earth will return to its nebulous state and go wandering through the sky,free at last from parasites and disease. (Svevo, 1923/1958, p. 398)

In the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, such a tremendous catastrophe becomesmore real than ever. Holden Caulfield, the disturbed adolescent hero of J.D. Salingers

novel The Catcher in the Rye (1945), welcomes the scenario of Armageddon withopen arms:

Anyway, Im sort of glad theyve got the atomic bomb invented. If theres ever anotherwar, Im going to sit right the hell on top of it. Ill volunteer for it, I swear to God I will.(Salinger, 1945/1994, p. 127)

It can be objected to that these examples remain within the realm of literary imagina-tion. Yet in contrast to mythological representations, they draw upon the latest expe-riences of mankind. While revivals of mythological subjects can affect traditionalviews of history, products of realistic fiction construct them anew, by alerting thereader to specific dangerous mechanisms of human behavior.

Beyond the boundaries of literary texts, we in the West look back today on analarming history of recent killing spree including, inter alia, the 1999 ColumbineHigh School shooting and the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, both of which signifi-cantly ended with the suicide of the culprit(s). Here, too, a culture-bound syndromeshould not be postulated in view of the higher incidence of this phenomenon inmodern Western societies. The novelists should not be held accountable for the mech-anisms they illustrate; quite the reverse, they should be appreciated for the warningsthey provide.

So far, we have traced a suicidal and nihilistic line of development along which

the literary imagination of suicide bombing has made the transition from innocentstrategic speculations to perilous empirical potentials. Yet there is another, agonisticand revolutionary line of development which should now be addressed in the lastplace. Ever since Joseph Addisons play Cato (1712) with its eponymous hero as theparagon of liberty and Patrick Henrys American revolutionary cry, give me liberty,or give me death! (Wirt, 1817, p. 142), liberty has more and more become an idealfor which one could willingly kill or die. So Schillers play included correspondingsocio-political, socio-economic, and especially anti-feudal factors in the motives ofhis suicide bombers avant la lettre. Where the asymmetry of power is so extreme andthe prospect of liberty so desperate that death in combat appears far preferable to life

under tyranny, Alfred Nobels epochal invention of dynamite in 1866 opened up anew and fascinating option for destructive suicide in the service of revolution. TheRussian terrorists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who gave theirlives in order to save other lives from oppression by the czarist regime, were suicidebombers in the literal sense of the term.

Albert Camuss play The Just Assassins (1949) dramatizes a historical episodefrom 1905. The Combat Organization of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party plots theassassination of Grand Duke Sergei, Governor General of Moscow. Ivan Kaliayev, apassionate and rapturous member of the organization, is resolved to carry out the jobnot in spite of the risk, but because of the chance to die:

For a year now that has never left my thoughts; Ive been living for that moment day byday, hour by hour. And I know now that Id like to die on the spot, beside the Grand Duke.To shed my blood to the last drop, or blaze up like tinder in the flare of the explosion

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and leave not a shred of me behind. Do you understand why I asked to throw the bomb?To die for an ideal thats the only way of proving oneself worthy of it. Its our only

justification. (Camus, 1949/1962, p. 246, Act 1)

In his first attempt, Kaliayev fails to throw the bomb, because he catches sight of the

grand dukes wife, nephew, and niece seated in the carriage with him. He proves tobe too delicate to sacrifice children in the name of revolution (Camus, 1949/1962,pp. 253255, Act 2). The second attempt, by contrast, eventually succeeds: this timethe grand duke is travelling by himself. The bomb blows the grand dukes head off,but Kaliayev miraculously survives the explosion. He gets arrested and is laterexecuted.

A careful collation of Camuss play with Boris SavinkovsMemoirs of a Terror-ist (1917), who as the leader of the Combat Organization coordinated its activitiesduring the period in question, leads to a differentiated view of the process behindthe episode. First of all, throughout the planning stage, the presence of other people

in the grand dukes carriage had not been taken into account. Kaliayev refused tothrow the bomb on the first attempt, because he felt the need to clarify the questionwhether the organization consented to the killing of women and children (Savinkov,1917/1972, pp. 99100). In Camuss play, this aspect is less relevant, and the wholescene appears much more emotionally fraught than reported by Savinkov (Camus,1949/1962, pp. 253255, Act 2). Furthermore, the terroristic practice of the social-ist-revolutionaries by and large was far less philanthropical and justice-oriented thanCamuss play would make us believe. There was a rigidly hierarchical structure thatenabled the unscrupulous use of willing tools even a 16-year-old boy ashuman bombs (Savinkov, 1917/1972, p. 254); there were operations or operation

plans in which civil casualties were accepted for the sake of certain success(Savinkov, 1917/1972, pp. 213, 236, 237, 254, 277); and, not least, there wereagents provocateurs who double-crossed the whole revolutionary enterprise andturned the prolonged status quo to their profit (Savinkov, 1917/1972, chap. 3, pp.312350).

Camuss literary representation does little justice to the complexity of its historicalsubject. In his play, history and literature are amalgamated in so sophisticated amanner that literature presents itself as a piece of history, whereas history is sublimi-nally shifted within literature. The merits of the play for the understanding of suicideterrorism cannot be overlooked: it identifies appalling social injustice and asymmetryof power as situational forces, and fanatical devotion, invisible indoctrination, andoverwhelming idealism as systemic factors that all together produce the agonistic andsuicidal behavior pattern. The dilemma of organized freedom fighting finds clearexpression in the paradox between the proclaimed liberation of every man and theenforced obedience within the organization (Camus, 1949/1962, p. 236, Act 1). Theheroism that has been celebrated throughout thousands of years relativizes itself andsuddenly turns out to be doubtful in view of the fact that, with whatever justification,a murder takes place. On the other hand, Camuss just assassins appear far too muchestheticized and sentimentalized compared with the inwardly torn terrorists ofSavinkovs autobiography.

Ultimately, the suicidal character of the bombing be it in terrorism or in warfare

is not so much a matter of historical period, but rather a matter of technical equip-ment and the degree of desperation. More than 30 years later, during the Spanish CivilWar (19361939), George Orwell marveled at the wretched conditions of the POUM

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470 A. Takeda

militia he had joined to fight against the fascists, taking special notice of the role ofthe bomb thrower as a virtual one-way tool:

The bomb in use at this time was a frightful object known as the FAI bomb, it havingbeen produced by the Anarchists in the early days of the war. It was on the principle of

a Mills bomb, but the lever was held down not by a pin but a piece of tape. You brokethe tape and then got rid of the bomb with the utmost possible speed. It was said of these

bombs that they were impartial; they killed the man they were thrown at and the manwho threw them. (Orwell, 1938/1996, p. 34)

A few years later, concrete plans for suicide bombing were drawn up during theGerman resistance against the Nazi regime. Erich Kordt, Rudolf-Christoph vonGersdorff, Axel von dem Bussche, and Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist, to identify but afew, belong to those who were resolved to blow themselves up with Adolf Hitler(Doubek, 2001, p. 163; Fest, 1973, pp. 956957). Only the irony of fate which is aeuphemism for historical contingency prevented them from staging grandiose exam-

ples of heroic tyrannicide. All the same, there would have been no escaping the ethicalquestion of suicide and murder.

Conclusion

This article has attempted to trace a dynamic discursive lineage through prominenttexts of Western literature, inter alia, from Sophocles Ajax via Miltons SamsonAgonistes and Schillers The Robbers to Albert Camuss The Just Assassins, whichreveals Western behavior patterns analogous to those of contemporary suicide bomb-ers. The exemplifying method was applied in order to highlight specific important

moments within the undercurrents of Western cultural manifestations and to elucidatethe ambivalent historical development and dialectic transformation of Western viewsof what we call suicide terrorism today.

The investigated texts provide examples of figures who act according to an analo-gous pattern, but show markedly different profiles. Ajax, for instance, represents thearchaic type of suicide bomber; he fights out his struggle for honor and revenge to thepoint of self-destruction. Samson embodies the religious type of suicide bomber; hisfaith makes him blind to the carnage he causes. The robbers depicted by Schiller playthe part of godless suicide bombers; yet they fall back on theological thinking patternsand judge the world with violence and terror. The terrorists portrayed by Camus,

finally, appear as ideological suicide bombers; they want to be just assassins andaccept death as the price for tyrannicide.Ajax and Samson act individually, on their own initiative, and decide on retaliation

through destroying themselves. It ought not to be forgotten, at the same time, that theyare mythological figures. Schillers robbers and Camuss terrorists, on the other hand,are historically inspired and present different qualities. They bring to light dynamicgroup phenomena which arise from the interaction between the sacrificers and thesacrificed. This aspect reveals the functional gap between suicide bombers and theircommand posts, that is to say, between proclaimed heroes and propaganda profiteers.The hidden inhuman system that instructs and sacrifices its allegedly holy warriorsshould be observed in its complex structure organized by hierarchical power relationsand fed by ideologically controlled indoctrination.

This suggestion complies with Zimbardos proposal to give greater considerationand more weight to situational and systemic processes than we typically do when we

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are trying to account for aberrant behaviors (Zimbardo, 2007, p. 445).18 Recent liter-ary attempts to thematize and analyze the phenomenon of suicide terrorism such asJohn Updikes novel Terrorist (2006) and Christoph Peterss novel A Room in theHouse of War (2006), however, tend rather to culturalize or religionize the motives forsuicide bombing and thus, independent of their authors intentions, to risk reinforcinga biasing trend. Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy, the hero of Updikes novel, is half Egyptianand half Irish-American, but the crucial factors that shape him are his Arabic identityand his Muslim faith. Jochen Sawatzky, the hero of Peterss novel, is a German convertto Islam whose faith becomes radicalized in the Islamic fundamentalist milieu. In real-ity, Updike originally had in mind a troubled Christian as the main character, but laterhe chose to follow fashion and to present a Muslim instead (McGrath, 2006).19

Culturalistic or religion-focused views of suicide terrorism obscure the situational(socio-political, socio-economic, etc.) and systemic (ideological, power-related, etc.)forces at work in the formation process of suicide bombers. They generate stereotyp-ical images of dangerous cultural otherness, transfer the polarity of good and evil to

the dichotomy of the familiar and the unfamiliar, and promote the dubious idea that incertain cultures life is worth less than in others. For a peaceful coexistence of diversecultures and religions, profounder insights into what is beyond cultural and religiousdifferences are needed.

To conclude this analysis of a representative though not exhaustive series ofexamples, it can be stated that suicide bombings are not the expressions of specificcultural peculiarities or exclusively religious fanaticisms. Instead, they represent astrategic option of the desperately weak who strategically disguise themselves underthe mask of apparent strength, terror, and invincibility (see Sophocles, 1994; Milton,1968; Rousseau, 1782/1783; Schiller, 1781/1799; von Clausewitz, 1832/1976). Those

who utilize such an option make weapons out of human beings, violating their rightsto life (see Shakespeare, 1986; Locke, 1967; Savinkov, 19171972; Camus, 1949/1962;Orwell, 1938/1996).20 Panic over-reactions to suicide bombings are just as inappropri-ate as the celebration of the perpetrators as glorious martyrs.

In consequence, the alternative policies proposed here for more effectively coun-tering the challenge of suicide terrorism are the following. First, the internationaldefense policy in the so-called war against terrorism should take note of the enemysdesperate weakness and rethink their offensive strategies. Second, the internationalsecurity policy should not concentrate their focus on specific cultural or religiousperpetrator profiles in coping with the threat of terrorism. Third, the international

cultural policy should not protect and promote one leading culture or civilization, butrather invoke those aspects which unite various cultures and civilizations. Fourth andfinally, all the societies concerned should work together to break down the perceivedcultural or religious polarities as well as the conflict-loaded myths and produce acommon atmosphere of symmetry.

Acknowledgements

This article is based on my doctoral dissertation presented to the Faculty of ModernLanguages of the University of Tbingen in 2008 and honored with the University ofTbingen Doctoral Research Award in 2009. I am especially grateful to the Friedrich

Naumann Foundation for Liberty for its financial support during my doctoral research,Professor Dr Jrgen Wertheimer for his supervision and guidance over the years, ProfessorDr Howard Zehr for his encouragement to produce this article, and Dr Thomas Riplinger forhis painstaking reading of the manuscript.

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Notes

1. See, on the contrary, the concise and impartial historical survey of suicidal missions byLaqueur (2003, chap. 4, pp. 7197); see also Kermanis claim in allusion to Nietzschean

philosophy that suicide terrorism is just a variety of nihilism (Kermani, 2002, p. 35).2. Laqueurs introductory paragraph to the chapter Suicide (Laqueur, 2003, pp. 7197), is

worth being quoted here at length: Suicide bombing, one of the most prominent featuresof contemporary terrorism, has been one of the most difficult to understand for those livingin what is commonly known as the postheroic age. it is frequently maintained thatsuicide attack is something new in history and specifically Muslim. (At one time, in the1980s, it was believed to be specifically Shi ite.) However, such missions have occurredover a long time in many countries and cultures. In fact, a review of the history of terrorismover the ages up to the 1960s shows that in the great majority of cases, all terrorism wassuicide terrorism. An attempt to understand the suicide bombers ought to take intoaccount a great variety of circumstances and motives and should not focus on one specificgroup and religion, even if that group happens to figure very prominently at the presenttime (Laqueur, 2003, p. 71; see also p. 77).

3. Atran, for instance, qualifies the suicide attack practiced by Russian anarchists and Japa-nese kamikaze as a weapon of terror (Atran, 2003, p. 1534), even if the Japanese exampledoes not fit into his description of suicide terrorism as the targeted use of self-destructinghumans against noncombatant typically civilian populations to effect political change(Atran, 2003, p. 1534). The Japanese kamikaze, as a military operation, did not target anynoncombatant populations.

4. For an extensive analysis and a working taxonomy of heroism see Zimbardo (2007, chap.16, pp. 444488).

5. Note, for instance, the large number of so-called green-card soldiers serving in the USArmy since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

6. Needless to mention, the general trend described here applies only to conventional warsbetween states, not to civil wars or asymmetric conflicts including terrorism. GeorgeOrwell, for instance, who joined the POUM militia during the Spanish Civil War (19361939), laments not only the miserable instruction and equipment provided there, but also,

with a cynical undertone, the astonishing lack of ethical restraints against using and thussacrificing children of sixteen years at the very most (Orwell, 1938/1996, p. 18): thismob of eager children, who were going to be thrown into the front line in a few days time,were not even taught how to fire a rifle or pull the pin out of a bomb (Orwell, 1938/1996,

p. 8; see also pp. 2526).7. Hobbes substantiates his view a few lines above as follows: nothing the Soveraign

Representative can doe to a Subject, on what pretence soever, can properly be calledInjustice, or Injury; because every Subject is Author of every act the Soveraign doth; sothat he never wanteth Right to any thing, otherwise, than as he himself is the Subject toGod, and bound thereby to observe the laws of Nature. And therefore it may, and doth oftenhappen in Common-wealths, that a Subject may be put to death, by the command of theSoveraign Power; and yet neither doe the other wrong (Hobbes, 1651/1997, p. 117).

8. One of the prominent examples of human trade within the Western states, which isreflected in Friedrich Schillers tragedy Cabal and Love (1784) (Schiller, 2004, p. 780;see also p. 977, n. 780), is the traffic in mercenaries. For Karl Eugen, the Duke ofWrttemberg, the sale of his soldiers to America in the late eighteenth century was a

profitable business.9. Among those figures who fit the behavior scheme of a suicide bomber and play important

parts in dramatic texts, one can cite, for instance, Haimon in Sophocles Antigone (442BC), Stolzius in Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenzs The Soldiers (1776), Max Piccolomini inSchillers Wallenstein trilogy (17981799), Joan in Schillers The Maid of Orleans (1801),and Ephraim in Friedrich HebbelsJudith (1839/1840).

10. For further important reasons for the relatively rare occurrence of the motif of suicidebombing in Western literature see the analyses of motivic restrictions given by Aristotelianpoetics and Hegelian aesthetics in Takeda (2010, pp. 7176).

11. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, on the contrary, gives no indication in his versionof the Samson story inJewish Antiquities (ca 9394 AD) that Samsons killing himself wasintended (Josephus, 1988, pp. 125143, here pp. 141143).

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12. Assum significantly summarizes Miccas deed as heroic sacrifice (Assum, 1926, p. 145),albeit the two accounts he quotes (Assum, 1926, pp. 143145) make it more or less clearthat Micca actually wanted to save himself from the explosion.

13. There are various theories revolving around the etymology of the word assassin. Its possi-ble roots range from ha[scaron] [ imacr] [scaron] (Arab. hashish) via as[amacr] s (Pers. foundation) to the name ofthe sect founder Hasan-i Sabbah himself. Kermani points out that medieval Europeanknowledge of the Assassins was above all fed by the Sunni polemics directed against theIsma ili sect as the epitome of evil (Kermani, 2002, pp. 3940) and refers in turn to Daftary(1994). In any case, there is no historical evidence that the Assassins consumed hashish.

14. Agamemnon and Menelaus have influenced the judges of the competition for Achillesarmor in Odysseus favor.

15. InJewish Antiquities, as indicated above, Josephus portrays Samson as an avenger, but notas a suicide (Josephus, 1988, pp. 125143, here pp. 141143). In theLetter to the Hebrews,on the other hand, Samson is mentioned among those who were approved because of theirfaith (Hebrews 11:39; see 11:438, here 11:32). John Donne sums up the problem in hissermon Deaths Duell (1630/1962): God received Sampson, who went out of thisworld insuch a manner (consider it actively, consider itpassively, in his owne death, andin those whom heslew with himselfe) as was subject to interpretation hard enough. Yet the

holy Ghosthath moved S.Paulto celebrate Sampson in hisgreat Catalogue, and so dothall the Church (Donne, 1630/1962, p. 241, emphasis in original).16. For a review of the recruitment and use of children by Palestinian militant organizations

see, e.g., Human Rights Watch (2002, pp. 8993).17. Note, however, that Euripides The Bacchae (405 BC) can be referred to as the first extant

tragedy that reflects the phenomenon of collective terror prior to the theorizing of poeticsby Aristotle. For an analysis of the tragedy from this viewpoint see Eagleton (2005, pp. 141).

18. Zimbardos objection is that Traditional analyses by most people, including those in legal,religious, and medical institutions, focus on the actor as the sole causal agent. Consequently,they minimize or disregard the impact of situational variables and systemic determinantsthat shape behavioral outcomes and transform actors (Zimbardo, 2007, p. 445). With regardto terrorism at large, different approaches are pursued. Whereas Laqueur claims that the

decision to engage in terrorist acts is as much a matter of personality as of ideologicalconviction (Laqueur, 2003, p. 13), Eagleton asserts that Justice is the only prophylacticof terror (Eagleton, 2005, p. 15).

19. Doris Lessing, in her novel The Good Terrorist (1985), anticipates the perceptual shifttoward cultural and religious biases with regard to the terrorists life-despising conductalready in the 1980s. After a dreadful terrorist attack perpetrated by a group of left-wingactivists on a luxury hotel in central London it is to note that Faye, who drives the car

bomb to the target destination, uses the opportunity to commit suicide Lessing lets a thirdparty express its point of view: The taximan said it was a shocking thing; probably thoseArabs again; they had no sense of the sacredness of life, not like the Westerners, if he hadhis way he would stop the Arabs from coming here (Lessing, 1985, p. 357).

20. Hoffman, for instance, quotes an Israeli policeman as saying, There was one event wherea suicide bomber had been told all he had to do was to carry the bomb and plant explosivesin a certain place. But the bomb was remote-control detonated (Hoffman, 2003). Recall,furthermore, the al Qa ida suicide bombing using two mentally ill women as unwittingsuicide bombers in Baghdad on 1 February 2008.

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